What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.

Christopher Hitchens (1949 - 2011) was an Anglo-American author and journalist. His books made him a prominent public intellectual and a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He was a columnist and literary critic at Vanity Fair, Slate, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry and a variety of other media outlets. He was named one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by Foreign Policy and Britain's Prospect.

Ignore the recent excuses. Henry Kissinger's entire career was a series of massacres and outrages.
By Christopher Hitchens

"Until the most recent release of the Nixon/Kissinger tapes, what were the permitted justifications for saying in advance that the slaughter of Jews in gas chambers by a hostile foreign dictatorship would not be "an American concern?"Read More (Slate)

Are we committed to Afghanistan or to Hamid Karzai's government?
By Christopher Hitchens

Friends of his would enjoy disputing whether his heart or his ego was the larger, but it was sad to know, as Richard Holbrooke's heart eventually burst, that he had strained a good deal of it in upholding a policy in which much of his best advice had been, or was being, ignored.Read More (Slate)

Some DH visitors seem to have an urge to post and express themselves quite off topic to published posts. I've added a comment box where these views can be posted. So, stay on topic when commenting on posts, if you have something else to say, there's this comment box for that. It's a free speech box, so don't bother complaining on possible provocative or insulting comments. It's your choice if you want to go there.
Every now and then one stumbles upon non Hitchens material that one would like to share. A box like this is the appropriate place.
I don't know if this will catch on but it'll be an option for a while, if no comments are posted, I'll simply remove it.

BY SOPHIE TARNOWSKA
"I met writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens for the first time in 2008, here in Montreal. When I saw him again last month at the Munk debates in Toronto, I was shocked at the change cancer had wrought. He'd been diagnosed with esophageal cancer -the same cancer that had killed his father -this past June during the promotional tour for his memoir, Hitch-22."

"The fact that Christopher Hitchens has a problem with the Jews has been an open secret for years. No one much likes to talk about it, and for various reasons his journalistic peers have remained silent on the subject. But it is nonetheless the case, and there is little sense in denying it."

I didn't first pay much attention to this and it's now a few days old but since it has made headlines on other blogs and sites, and in case you missed it and are interested, read Benjamin Kerstein's article here. (jewishideasdaily.com)

Peter gives his view on the Blair debate. (Which he hasn't watched or listened to.)

"I'm asked to comment on my brother's encounter (styled by some a 'debate') with Anthony Blair in Toronto, recently broadcast on BBC radio. Delighted as I am that the BBC (which can and often does reduce an important Parliamentary event to three jokey minutes) has taken to broadcasting debates on major issues on Radio 4, I do wonder whether the habit will last, and why this particular one made it so swiftly on to the air."

On his Jewish grandmother, his atheism, his writing—and facing his own mortality
by Noah Richler

"I don’t think someone is religious unless they have faith in what St. Paul calls the evidence of things not seen—in other words, the supernatural or supervising deity, presence, force who requires and expects certain kinds of propitiation. If that’s not in your mind, then I don’t think you’re really a religious person at all."

CH replies: "I was naturally flattered to have my opinions on the origin of the Vietnam conflict taken so seriously in your recent postings. But this feeling gave way to a sense of bewilderment as I read further. Is it really controversial, anywhere, to assert that United States support for French colonialism was at the root of the disaster?" Continue reading

"Forfeiting a both-houses Republican victory, rational conservatives ignored or excused the most hateful kind of populist claptrap (e.g., the fetid weirdness of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project). The poison they’ve helped disseminate will still be in the American bloodstream when the country needs it least."

Highlights and exclusive interviews with Hitchens, Tariq Ramadan, New York Times National Religion Correspondent Laurie Goodstein, Nick Mafi, and David Sehat, author of The Myth of American Religious Freedom.

The WikiLeaks founder is an unscrupulous megalomaniac with a political agenda.
By Christopher Hitchens

"In my most recent book, I reprint some words from a British Embassy cable, sent from Baghdad to the Foreign Office in 1976. The subject is Iraq's new leader. His quiet coup d'etat is reassuringly described as "the first smooth transfer of power since 1958."Read More (Slate)

This question was put directly to the audience of the Munk Debates on Religion both before and after they listened to a debate on the issue between former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, arguing in favour of the resolution AND bestselling author, journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens, arguing against the resolution.

Prior to the debate, 25% of the 2,600 audience members agreed with the resolution, while 55% disagreed and 20% were undecided. Immediately following the debate, agreement with the resolution had risen to 32% while disagreement with the resolution had risen to 68%.

About This Study

This poll was conducted for the Munk Debates (www.munkdebates.com) by Innovative Research Group, Inc. (www.innovativeresearch.ca), a national public opinion research firm on Friday, November 26th, 2010.
Prior to the start of the debate, members of the audience at the Munk Debates on Religion were asked to fill out a ballot where they indicated whether they agreed or disagreed with the resolution or were undecided. Ballots were collected and the results recorded using Scantron readers.
After the debate concluded, the audience was again asked to fill out a ballot where they indicated whether they still agreed or disagreed with the resolution. In the post debate ballot, the undecided option was not provided. Again, the ballots were collected and results recorded using Scantron readers. See detailed findings below for the ballot question wording and results.
The results of this poll are based on ballots collected among spectators at the Munk Debates on Religion.

DETAILED FINDINGS

Pre-Debate Ballot

QUESTION #1
Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world.
AGREE - 25%
DISAGREE - 55%
UNDECIDED – 20%

QUESTION #2
Depending on what you hear during the debate are you open to changing your vote?
YES - 76%
NO - 24%

Post-Debate Ballot

QUESTION #1
Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world.
AGREE - 32%
DISAGREE - 68%

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writer James Kirchick recently interviewed Hitchens at his home in Washington about his left-wing revolutionary past, his views on America, Iran's nuclear program, Turkey's Islamist turn, Putin's Russia, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sampled his views on a variety of international figures.

A gentleman and a truly formidable debater, Christopher Hitchens is a giant of the mind and a model of courage
By Richard Dawkins

"I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship. The last time I did a "heroes and villains" piece I chose Pope John Paul II as hero, on the grounds that he was doing everything possible to discredit the appalling institution of which he was head." Read More (guardian.co.uk)

"I am sometimes asked whether I ever get tired of debating the faithful. There are two reasons why I never do. The first is that this argument is at the root of all other arguments: constituting the essential underlay of differences about philosophy, cosmology, history, textual criticism and even medicine. The second is that I never know what my antagonist is going to say, or affirm, or claim to believe."Read More (Washington Post)

The enemy is inventive and imaginative. Our response is neither.
By Christopher Hitchens

"I did not pay any attention to last week's feeble-minded attempt at a civilian-sponsored go-slow at airport security checkpoints. When the best that the children of a revolution can do for the defense of their inalienable protection against unwarranted search and seizure is to issue the pathetic moan, "Don't touch my junk," a low point of humiliation has been reached." Read More (Slate)

Fiction about the nation’s capital is a growth that flourishes only on the lower slopes of Parnassus. Think of the flower of our novelists—Updike, Mailer, Roth, Cheever, Bellow—and see if you can call to mind a single scene that is set on the banks of the Potomac.Read More (City Journal)

New Statesman: "You may need to set aside the rest of your Saturday to get through this, but here in full is the transcript of the long-anticipated Munk debate between Christopher Hitchens and former prime minister Tony Blair. The motion: "Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world". No prizes for guessing who was arguing for and against.
Read it here. (newstatesman.com)

Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, opposes to the death penalty for Tariq Aziz, one of Iraq's worst enemies.

By Christopher Hitchens

"When I wrote a recent call for the commutation of the death sentence against Tariq Aziz, I was privately hoping that the president of Iraq would intervene, as he has done before, to say that he would decline to sign his name to the death warrant."Read More (Slate)

William Dembski debated CH at the Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, Nov 18, 2010.
As some of you have noticed, the debate was uploaded on YouTube but is now removed. I've spent some time trying to download it myself but have managed to save only parts of the debate. I'll try again at a later date. There's no point uploading it on YT at the moment so watch it here (pcawebcast.com).

"There is an odd thing about Christopher Hitchens. Having entered journalism as a Trotskyist in 1970s Britain (which he memorably described as "Weimar without the sex"), he has spent the last decade as a leading advocate of bombing Afghanistan "back out of the Stone Age." Yet this ideological change has had little effect on the pleasures of reading him."

Why America will come to regret the craven deal Obama is offering Netanyahu.

By Christopher Hitchens

"Those of us who keep an eye on the parties of God are avid students of the weekly Sabbath sermons ofRabbi Ovadia Yosef. In these and other venues, usually broadcast, this elderly Sephardic ayatollah provides an action-packed diet that seldom disappoints."Read More (Slate)

In June Christopher Hitchens, the hard-drinking polemicist and atheist, met his toughest opponent yet when he was diagnosed with cancer. The question on many lips was: would his illness alter his beliefs – on Iraq, on Islam, on God? At home in Washington, with a large glass of Johnnie Walker to hand, he responds with characteristic combativeness.

"As many of you will know, I recentlydebatedChristopher Hitchens in Billings, Montana. I have been slow to blog about it for two reasons. First, it is a more difficult thing writing about a debate in which I was a combatant. I want to be fair. Second, I have been a bit busy."

Ever since I was felled in mid-book tour this summer, I have adored and seized all chances to play catch-up and to keep as many engagements as I can. Debating and lecturing are part of the breath of life to me, and I take deep drafts whenever and wherever possible.Read article (Vanity Fair, December 2010)

William Dembski will be debating CH at the Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, Nov 18, 2010.

"Does A Good God Exist?"
"Dembski and Hitchens will debate the existence of a good God during a conference for the Biblical Worldview Institute at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas. The debate will be hosted in the worship center at Prestonwood Baptist Church from 8:40 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. It will also be webcast on www.pcawebcast.com."More Info (uncommondescent.com)

"It's amusing, if frustrating, to see the response of dogmatic unbelievers to my brother's thoughtful and generous remarks. It is clear that many of them find such thoughtfulness and generosity repugnant in their hero (and some of these contributions are embarrassing in their sycophancy). They would much prefer him not to have said this."

In the battle for ideas, scientists could learn from Christopher Hitchens.By Michael Shermer

"Although he has no formal training in science, I would pit Hitchens against any of the purveyors of pseudoscientific clap trap because of his unique and enviable skill at peeling back the layers of an argument and cutting to its core."

"One of the things that kept me away from my desk during the second half of October was a visit to Washington, during which I had a conversation with my left-wing atheist brother Christopher, sponsored by a fine body of men and women called the Pew Forum."

Low points from this year's dishonest, vacuous campaign season.

By Christopher Hitchens

Future chroniclers of the low, dishonest, vacuous campaign of 2010—not only not a single funny placard at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbertrallybut not a singleseriousone, either, plus the clapped-out crooner andfatwagroupieYusuf Islamimpersonating a potted plant—will certainly puzzle over President Barack Obama's almost weird refusal to stick up for himself in the middle of his first term.Read More (Slate)

"A journalist, author, critic and debater, Hitchens is one of those distinctly British intellectuals who seems to have read everything and forgotten nothing. In his columns, essays and books, in his speeches and impromptu public appearances, he is incapable of uttering or writing a boring sentence."Read article here. (Billings Gazette)

Fixed Point FoundationPre-Order a DVD of our latest debate - featuring Christopher Hitchens and Larry Taunton. Buy the pre-order now for a discounted price! DVDs expected to ship in a few months.

“I'd have to say, not to be a hypocrite, that my life is my writing before it's anything. Because that's who I am and my children come later and that's what they've had to put up with,” he says. Read interview here.

UPDATE.
From Fixed Point: Due to technical difficulties at the event location, the live stream of this debate was canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience. Plans are already underway to provide a screening and/or online stream of the full event in the near future. Check back soon for details.http://www.fixed-point.org/index.php/debates/333-godornogoddebate

BILLINGS - A casual spectator would never have thought the two men debating in "God or No God" at the packed Babcock Theater in Billings Tuesday night would be friends.

"Writing from southern Lebanon in the mid-to-late 1970s, during the continuing war of attrition between Israel and the PLO and at a time when the country's long-relegated Shiite minority was just beginning to get itself organized, I noticed the presence of an almost unremarked token force of Iranian troops." Read More (Slate)

Everyone, log on to http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hitchensblair/ and sign the petition. Do it right away to give the organizers time to relocate the event and to release more tickets for this debate. Remember, it has happened before. Hitchens' debates have been relocated due to great demand, so this is absolutely possible.

Sitting before a highly unusual forum at the Pew Research Center this afternoon were the provocateur atheist writer Christopher Hitchens, thinned and bald from ongoing chemotherapy, and his brother, Peter, a journalist and devout Christian. The brothers have had a largely estranged, cold relationship but had agreed to a gentle debate on the subject about which they both have recently published books -- God.

“This debate is not about the existence of God,” says Rudyard Griffiths, co-director and moderator of the Munk Debates. “We have asked Mr. Blair and Mr. Hitchens to wrestle with the more immediate question facing developed and developing nations: Is religion a force for peace or conflict in the modern world?”

Peach pits, open chakras, macrobiotic diets: cancer patients get more unsolicited advice than they could possibly follow. Cutting-edge medicine seems to offer limitless options, too—until the author runs smack into the lethal idiocy of the godly opponents of stem-cell research.